News Corporation executive James Murdoch, son of founder and media mogul Rupert, said Tuesday that its iPad-exclusive periodical, The Daily, should arrive in the next two weeks.

The Daily, which is to be News Corp's experimental push into digital-only publications, was originally scheduled for a Jan. 19 launch, but was postponed at the last minute. Reports suggested that the delays were due to a new subscription feature for iTunes that Apple has been working on.

"It should be launching in the next two weeks, I hope," Murdoch said Tuesday at the DLD media conference in Munich. Murdoch, who heads up News Corp's European and Asian operations, also confirmed the $.99 per week price, Reuters reports.

It was Murdoch himself who confirmed initial rumors of the iPad-specific newspaper in November of last year.

The Daily would be the latest in News Corp's collection of paid content publications. Last year, the conglomerate put the online editions of The Times of London and News of the World behind paywalls.

At the conference, Murdoch admitted that readership had dropped off significantly as a result, though the response had been positive.

"Sure enough, our audience has contracted dramatically but the engagement of the audience is very strong, our advertisers are happy," he said. According to Murdoch, News Corp will release subscriber numbers for the publications in about six weeks.

When asked whether The Sun will see a similar 'pay to view' strategy, Murdoch described his company as "cautious." Though most of the online newspaper will likely remain free, Murdoch did say, "I would be very confident that there would be a strong paid component in it."

A recent report described major magazine publishers as frustrated by Apple's existing pay-per-issue approach. According to the report, Apple has yet to ink subscription deals with publishers other than News Corp.

Sales figures for iPad editions of major print magazines have been in sharp decline as initial interest has dropped off. Wired magazine, for instance, has seen downloads drop from 100,000 copies in June to 22,000 and 23,000 in October and November, respectively.

Apple has reportedly told several European publishers that they cannot offer free iPad access to paid print subscribers after April 1. By offering free access to existing customers, publishers have been leaving Apple out of its 30 percent cut for App Store transactions.

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News Corporation executive James Murdoch, son of founder and media mogul Rupert, said Tuesday that its iPad-exclusive periodical, The Daily, should arrive in the next two weeks.

The Daily, which is to be News Corp's experimental push into digital-only publications, was originally scheduled for a Jan. 19 launch, but was postponed at the last minute. Reports suggested that the delays were due to a new subscription feature for iTunes that Apple has been working on.

"It should be launching in the next two weeks, I hope," Murdoch said Tuesday at the DLD media conference in Munich. Murdoch, who heads up News Corp's European and Asian operations, also confirmed the $.99 per week price, Reuters reports.

It was Murdoch himself who confirmed initial rumors of the iPad-specific newspaper in November of last year.

The Daily would be the latest in News Corp's collection of paid content publications. Last year, the conglomerate put the online editions of The Times of London and News of the World behind paywalls.

At the conference, Murdoch admitted that readership had dropped off significantly as a result, though the response had been positive.

"Sure enough, our audience has contracted dramatically but the engagement of the audience is very strong, our advertisers are happy," he said. According to Murdoch, News Corp will release subscriber numbers for the publications in about six weeks.

When asked whether The Sun will see a similar 'pay to view' strategy, Murdoch described his company as "cautious." Though most of the online newspaper will likely remain free, Murdoch did say, "I would be very confident that there would be a strong paid component in it."

A recent report described major magazine publishers as frustrated by Apple's existing pay-per-issue approach. According to the report, Apple has yet to ink subscription deals with publishers other than News Corp.

Sales figures for iPad editions of major print magazines have been in sharp decline as initial interest has dropped off. Wired magazine, for instance, has seen downloads drop from 100,000 copies in June to 22,000 and 23,000 in October and November, respectively.

Apple has reportedly told several European publishers that they cannot offer free iPad access to paid print subscribers after April 1. By offering free access to existing customers, publishers have been leaving Apple out of its 30 percent cut for App Store transactions.

Zzzzzzzzzz. I'm tired of repeating over and over again for the benefit of these publishing companies. Just give us the digital editions at low prices, make it run smooth and fast and look crisp, and Boom! You're in. Why all this pussyfooting around with which publications go where and when and spending so much effort on new publications specifically for iPad (which will probably be overpriced anyways)?

Case in point from Murdoch's country of birth... Many people like to keep in touch with Australian happenings. The NewsCorp newspaper The Australian, while right-leaning, is pretty much the only *national* Australian newspaper. Just get it on the iPad, $0.99 per issue, as long as it is cheaper than the print version, you can keep all the ads in there even, sorted. People will buy. Why is it so hard to understand?

There is a The Australian app by NewsCorp so I'm wondering why this article says it is Murdoch's first digital publication (okay fair enough The Daily will be the first NewsCorp iPad-only publication). The issue I see with The Australian app is that it seems like a web version and not the verbatim print version. Also, yes $6.99 for a month's subscription is good but why can't I purchase individual issues?

I'm confused. Australian and other users that have tried this app, what do you think?

In general, is it just me or is it very simple... We want, firstly, the verbatim print version at the minimum, because that has high value over "web" or "digital" versions. Because the iPad replaces magazines and newspapers. That does not mean that we don't want to read those magazines or newspapers, we just want it in a more convenient form. Especially for travellers, it is comforting to be able to read your home country's newspaper on the iPad as though you are flipping through the print version... In time, yes, iPad-only or iPad-specific publications may garner interest and value. But the first step is, we just want the print version in a convenient format at a low price on a per-issue or subscription basis (don't leave out the per-issue option!).

Publishers must understand that they have strong brands and strong value in print publications because of decades of history. A new iPad-tweaked publication will have to be damn good and also take time to become popular and valuable. Any publisher thinking of creating special digital versions and charging more than the print versions are barking up the wrong tree. As I say above, start simple, price low, go for volume, offer at minimum the verbatim print version and formatting (bells and whistles like page reflow, "social" bullshit and all that, OK, but get the basics down).

Zinio is quite good but needs lower per-issue pricing, as well as integration with paying only through the App Store to simplify purchases and cater to impulse buys from customers.

Seeing they censor less offensive content Apple and SJ should ban any and all News Corp's repulsive right-wing trash from running on iOS. Here is a company reportedly and unashamedly benefitting from the interception of private mobile phone calls and other major illegal breaches of privacy to make a profit.

SJ would rightly have blown a fuse if ever he'd learned his mobile conversations had been illegally tapped just to sell details of his private life to an amoral and avaricious public.

I use to think you had a backbone Steve, and that you also cared about human rights. I guess you entered a bargain when the life of another was taken to get you that withering liver.

Zzzzzzzzzz. I'm tired of repeating over and over again for the benefit of these publishing companies. Just give us the digital editions at low prices, make it run smooth and fast and look crisp, and Boom! You're in. Why all this pussyfooting around with which publications go where and when and spending so much effort on new publications specifically for iPad (which will probably be overpriced anyways)?

Case in point from Murdoch's country of birth... Many people like to keep in touch with Australian happenings. The NewsCorp newspaper The Australian, while right-leaning, is pretty much the only *national* Australian newspaper. Just get it on the iPad, $0.99 per issue, as long as it is cheaper than the print version, you can keep all the ads in there even, sorted. People will buy. Why is it so hard to understand?

There is a The Australian app by NewsCorp so I'm wondering why this article says it is Murdoch's first digital publication (okay fair enough The Daily will be the first NewsCorp iPad-only publication). The issue I see with The Australian app is that it seems like a web version and not the verbatim print version. Also, yes $6.99 for a month's subscription is good but why can't I purchase individual issues?

I'm confused. Australian and other users that have tried this app, what do you think?

In general, is it just me or is it very simple... We want, firstly, the verbatim print version at the minimum, because that has high value over "web" or "digital" versions. Because the iPad replaces magazines and newspapers. That does not mean that we don't want to read those magazines or newspapers, we just want it in a more convenient form. Especially for travellers, it is comforting to be able to read your home country's newspaper on the iPad as though you are flipping through the print version... In time, yes, iPad-only or iPad-specific publications may garner interest and value. But the first step is, we just want the print version in a convenient format at a low price on a per-issue or subscription basis (don't leave out the per-issue option!).

Publishers must understand that they have strong brands and strong value in print publications because of decades of history. A new iPad-tweaked publication will have to be damn good and also take time to become popular and valuable. Any publisher thinking of creating special digital versions and charging more than the print versions are barking up the wrong tree. As I say above, start simple, price low, go for volume, offer at minimum the verbatim print version and formatting (bells and whistles like page reflow, "social" bullshit and all that, OK, but get the basics down).

Zinio is quite good but needs lower per-issue pricing, as well as integration with paying only through the App Store to simplify purchases and cater to impulse buys from customers.

I'm not au fait with The Australian, but I see your point and agree entirely with what you say. I take a great interest in how the news networks and magazines are approaching the digital platform, and I too feel they're approaching it all wrong. I blogged a couple of days about this, so I'll just paste in what I wrote here, I'd be interested in anyone's feedback. Note it's a continuation of a previous post I made about iPad magazine sales being in decline.

Why are digital magazines on the iPad already in decline, after the initial gold rush users are losing interest in the digital versions. Wired, which sold 100K issues of it?s first iPad release, then managed to sell an average of 31K in the following months, with only 23K for October and 22K for November (for comparison they sold 130k printed versions in Oct-Nov).

Why is this happening? It?s too early to say for sure (this is a very new market space), but general consensus is that Apple?s lack of subscription based payment is a major reason, meaning users have to manually purchase individual magazines rather than automated payments, plus these work out being more expensive. There?s rumours that Apple are about to roll out subscription based payments, hopefully it won?t be too little too late.

But will it be the answer, possibly, but I believe magazines and news networks need to look at the iPad and tablets in an entirely different way, rather than simply a medium for them to spout out digital versions of their print publications.

I?ve read numerous blogs and reports saying print is dead, but there?s new print magazines being released every week, so that doesn?t seem to ring true to me. Consumers still wish to consume, but the way they consume information is different now, it?s available instantaneously from so many sources and with social networks that information is becoming more and more driven by their friends, associates and their own likes and dislikes.

Flipboard on the iPad is a wonderful example of this, never before has my Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds looked so good, and been so engaging. Now if I could subscribe to several news networks, magazines etc all within a single app (or website for that matter), and micro pay for each article as I read it, I?d be happy, as I only pay for the articles that grabbed my eye and interested me, and the software would automatically highlight related articles from all my subscribed sources and suggest new ones from other popular sources I may not have heard about and would have never found on my own.

Hands up who has ever read an entire newspaper or magazine, cover to cover? Not many, so why pay for the whole thing when you only read a fraction of it? So rather than getting what you pay for, how about only paying for what you want? Who wouldn?t pay a penny or a cent or two per news item or magazine article that they read, as long as the payment part was transparent and managed for them, most people would give this a go, especially if they knew they could set a cap, or would have access to the whole issue if they went over a certain percentage of articles. Adverts can still be utilised, they could even be used against payment, watch an ad, get the article for free or at a reduced rate.

The technology is certainly there, the main thing holding it up, is publishers being scared to give it go through fear of losing control of their content and user base, but if they don?t do it soon willingly, then their hands will be forced by market forces, and they?re have less room to negotiate!

Who could pull this off, Apple, Amazon, Google, they could all do it, although I feel Apple is best placed for the micropayments, plus by utilising the iPad and the iOS platform, far more engaging advertising can be achieved than on a Kindle. Google just don?t have the payment side worked out properly. Apple on the other hand do, they have iTunes, ease of use and making micropayments is already there. I?ve read often that micropayments won?t work as users are put off by the fear of accumulating enormous bills at the end of the month, but the success of the App Store squashes that claim, often I?ve purchased apps at £0.59 (the minimum charge), for Apps I know nothing about, or will only use for a day or so.

With rumours of the next iPhone and iPad finally having Near Field chips, Apple are in a prime position to take on the big credit card companies that have been dragging their heels on NF for years.

An application that fuses Flipboard and Apple?s iBook into a magazine / news RSS reader, come social app linked to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, that microcharges you for articles as and when you read them, embedded with iAds, all linked back to your iTunes account, would be a very powerful and profitable application, and would be the perfect way for Apple to build it?s own social network (which it?s hungry to do), and utilise it?s new cloud data centre.

You do realize that NFC is avail in the latest Nokia phones right. Apple is not the first with this.

of course I do, considering I've used a NF enabled phone in Japan about 4 years ago (plus I don't remember saying anywhere that Apple were the first, far from it, I was hoping it would be in the first iPhone)... anyway unlike Nokia, Apple have a longstanding payment system via iTunes, Nokia doesn't have anything approaching that scale. Although I did use a Nokia to pay for something once when I was in Norway, I SMS'd a code on a vending machine to buy a drink, after charging my mobile account the drink popped out. But that's as far as I've ever seen mobiles being utilised properly (outside of Japan that is)

The important thing reported in this article is that they got the pricing right - 99 cents per week (less than 15 cents per day). If they have some decent content, people will buy at this price. Hopefully, this model will be successful and other periodical publishers will see that value pricing will allow them to reach a much larger audience online.

I take exception to the idea of just delivering the print-formatted issue. Those printed pages are carefully laid out based on the medium employed; we should expect that the publishers gives us no less in terms of quality for an tablet version.

Y'know, y'all oughta consider not buying it if it's not yer cuppa, but just maybe letting people who want to do so. It is a story about tech trends and publishing after all.

Could not agree with you more. I'm surprised at how many lefties are parked at AI. It seems any story about Murdoch ... here come the 'Faux News' wanna-be witty crowd. Free enterprise is about making money and by creating digital news content especially for the iPad, Murdoch is trying to capitalize on that free enterprise concept. If it works, then we can be happy someone/anyone actually gave it a real go, if it doesn't then he loses money ... pretty simple.

Frankly, I am so freakin' tired of the talking heads from both sides of the political spectrum. Those that just dismiss Murdoch as a right-wing zealot are completely ignorant. Do a bit of studying about him and his family, especially his son who is politically left. Murdoch bought the WSJ and it's the most centered paper in the country (stories both right AND left spectrum). For those SHEEP on BOTH sides that throw out the talking points, how about reading products that offer BOTH viewpoints? I mean can you take the NYT seriously? Their newspaper is so slanted to the left it's laughable. I prefer to read products that give us both viewpoints, which is why I stick with papers like the WSJ and websites like Politico.

Could not agree with you more. I'm surprised at how many lefties are parked at AI. It seems any story about Murdoch ... here come the 'Faux News' wanna-be witty crowd. Free enterprise is about making money and by creating digital news content especially for the iPad, Murdoch is trying to capitalize on that free enterprise concept. If it works, then we can be happy someone/anyone actually gave it a real go, if it doesn't then he loses money ... pretty simple.

Frankly, I am so freakin' tired of the talking heads from both sides of the political spectrum. Those that just dismiss Murdoch as a right-wing zealot are completely ignorant. Do a bit of studying about him and his family, especially his son who is politically left. Murdoch bought the WSJ and it's the most centered paper in the country (stories both right AND left spectrum). For those SHEEP on BOTH sides that throw out the talking points, how about reading products that offer BOTH viewpoints? I mean can you take the NYT seriously? Their newspaper is so slanted to the left it's laughable. I prefer to read products that give us both viewpoints, which is why I stick with papers like the WSJ and websites like Politico.

Well put. And so many important stories never get any ink as we debate over a few often superficial ones - using the same stale talking points overandoverandoverand.... And since the thread's long been jacked into a debate about media politics rather than iPad publishing models, a few more observations on same:

The Washington Post has a similar editorial policy to that of the NYT/LAT/Boston Globe combine (or collective!), but they at least keep some wall up between Op-Ed and News so I trust their reporting more. And the Christian Science Monitor seems scrupulously balanced (and, no, airheads, the CSM is NOT a fundamentalist religious rag in any way, shape or form!). The BBC, on the other hand, covers everything ignored in the US media, and so, useful for scope, breadth and depth, but is religiously left about nearly every issue.

[Murdoch note: the WSJ is still a great paper (which I would call center-right in tradition, rather than center, at least in today's meaning of the terms), but I'm worried that in jazzing it up as he's doing, there are a few warning signs he could harm its hard-won credibility by pandering too much to rightish interests.]

As for "web-only," Politico is usually a place one can find a good read I agree, and National Review (traditionally conservative), The Daily Beast (some kind of mostly left), Salon (fashionably left), and the Huff Post (passionately left) can all yield nuggets worth digging for. And if you're into the "sturm und drang" of the debate, the Real Clear family (RC Politics, Markets, Science) will get your blood pumping with posts and polls from all over the map.

The video nets are a harder place to find balance. FNC and especially its newer sibling FBN have moved more to the shrill side of right in the last year or two (even if I'm more "right" than "left" I don't wanna be patronized or shilled to), even as MSNBC (even sans Olberman) makes Al Jezeera seem pro-US, while CNN does NOT split the diff between 'em, being very much in liberal hands, and CNN International even more so. So when I watch 'em, I tend to go back and forth, just being angry at 'em all.

Still, I always keep one stat in mind while I'm info-surfing, namely that 90%+ of all reporters and editors who will respond keep admitting year after year that they vote for Democrats. And no matter how much one tries to strive for "journalistic objectivity," some of one's beliefs are bound to bleed through and filter perceptions at least on occasion.

...An application that fuses Flipboard and Apple?s iBook into a magazine / news RSS reader, come social app linked to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, that microcharges you for articles as and when you read them, embedded with iAds, all linked back to your iTunes account, would be a very powerful and profitable application, and would be the perfect way for Apple to build it?s own social network (which it?s hungry to do), and utilise it?s new cloud data centre.

That's interesting. Now that's a decent way to do digital publishing if you're going to move completely away from the print version.

I take exception to the idea of just delivering the print-formatted issue. Those printed pages are carefully laid out based on the medium employed; we should expect that the publishers gives us no less in terms of quality for an tablet version.

Which is kind of my point. If this "Daily" doesn't have great content and is formatted more like just a web page, then it doesn't have much potential.

While some prefer an entirely new and exciting format, there is still a chunk of people that would like the quality and look of a print-format, but adapted appropriately in the digital medium (such as pinch-to-zoom, searchable text, etc.)

But also most importantly, we want that "print-quality" content... Not a website or blog, because people think of that as ~free~

Which is kind of my point. If this "Daily" doesn't have great content and is formatted more like just a web page, then it doesn't have much potential.

While some prefer an entirely new and exciting format, there is still a chunk of people that would like the quality and look of a print-format, but adapted appropriately in the digital medium (such as pinch-to-zoom, searchable text, etc.)

But also most importantly, we want that "print-quality" content... Not a website or blog, because people think of that as ~free~

From what I have read, it seems they have hired some good reporters. With a staff of one hundred people, they should also have proper copy editors and people with design experience to take full advantage of the medium. I, personally, think that having a print-format edition delivered on an electronic device is a weak compromise. Layout the publication for the device taking advantage of the technology to improve the experience.